It's Equal Pay Day -- representing how many additional days women must work on average to catch up with how much men earned last year.

For Democrats, it's also the day to ratchet up the rhetoric accusing Republicans of being anti-women (and anti-worker in general) by insisting they stop blocking the Paycheck Fairness Act. This legislation would make it easier for women to pursue claims of wage discrimination.

President Barack Obama held an event at the White House where he signed two executive orders, one prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their compensation, and another that requires federal contractors to report data on how much they pay their employees, by race and sex. Introduced by Lilly Ledbetter, "the face of fair pay," Obama said "America deserves equal pay for equal work."

So given all the heat around this issue, I thought I'd try to shed some light on it. Here are four things to consider:

Yes, there is a pay gap, but not all of it is due to discrimination

Both the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that women, on average, are paid less than men. The Census Bureau reports that women who worked full-time in 2012 made 77 cents for every $1 earned by men. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that women's median weekly earnings were 82 percent of men's median weekly earnings in 2012.

But both of these numbers are aggregate numbers -- they don't show that women make less money than men for doing the same job. Women often work in lower-paying occupations. That's not wage discrimination.

But other studies do show that women get paid less than men for doing the same job. A study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research show that women make less than men "in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women."

Reasons for this pay difference could include education levels, hours worked, and time spent away from the work force to have and care for children. But it would be naive to think that sexism no longer exists in the American workplace.

Equal pay for equal work already is the law of the land

The Equal Pay Act already bans "sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions."

The question is over how this law is enforced.

Only 1,019 charges filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year involved the Equal Pay Act, representing only 1 percent of its caseload. The EEOC, however, also filed 27,687 charges involving sex discrimination, which includes harassment and pregnancy discrimination.

Some employment attorneys contend that it's too hard to pursue pay discrimination cases because employers are given too much leeway to explain away pay discrepancies.

Are more regulations and more lawsuits the best way to address the pay gap?

The Paycheck Fairness Act would increase the damages available to victims of pay discrimination, make it easier for employees to pursue class action lawsuits in these cases, prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with each other, and allow the EEOC to require employers to submit pay data identified by race, sex and national origin of employees.

It also would make employers prove that a pay differential is related to job performance and consistent with business necessity, and not due to the employee's gender.

Many business groups contend the Paycheck Fairness Act isn't needed because current law provides adequate remedies to employees who are discriminated against. They argue the law would pose burdens and risks on employers who base compensation on factors such as training, experience and education; decrease their flexibility to address an employee's particular needs, such as time off for family matters; and expand opportunities for class-action lawyers to shake down employers that didn't intentionally discriminate against women.

“This legislation encourages lawsuits exposing businesses to unlimited penalties, which will have devastating effects on the nation’s businesses and suppress job creation at a time when the economy can ill-afford it," said Bill Hughes, senior vice president of government affairs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

Women-owned businesses face a revenue gap

In some ways, the growth of women-owned businesses is an American success story. Since 1997, women have started more businesses than men have. At last count there are 8.6 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., accounting for 29 percent of businesses overall.

But these businesses account for only 4 percent of all business revenue -- about the same share they had in 1998, despite the growth in women-owned businesses since then.

In many cases, these businesses are deliberately small -- home-based enterprises that never aim to grow beyond self-employment. But plenty of women business owners can tell you stories about the obstacles that they've faced in the past -- such as having bank officers ask them to have their husbands co-sign a business loan.

Are women business owners still being discriminated against?

I don't know the answer to that question, but the federal government is doing an underwhelming job in addressing their needs. In 2012, only 4 percent of all federal prime contracts went to women-owned businesses. Unofficial numbers for 2013 show that share increased slightly, to 4.33 percent. That's still far short of the government's goal of 5 percent.

Meanwhile, only 16 percent of the loans made through the Small Business Administration's flagship 7(a) loan program go to women-owned businesses. In terms of dollars, women are only getting 12 percent of this money.

Businesses aren't the only institutions that need to examine their record when it comes to helping women get ahead.